Tom Brady has been on a roll. After dominating the ESPYs, visiting the White House, and getting his 7th Super Bowl ring, the 43-year old QB is looking healthy as ever ahead of training camp.
Advertisement
It’s no secret that Brady had very few weapons in his last few seasons in New England. Apart from a declining Julian Edelman, who struggled to stay fit, the Pats weren’t exactly stacked with talented pass-catchers.
Ultimately, this could have been one of the many reasons for Brady’s decision to move to Tampa Bay. In his first season with the Bucs, he won the Super Bowl after being helped by an excellent receiver core, featuring the likes of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Rob Gronkowski.
Following a season where he won the Super Bowl in front of his home crowd, it’s no surprise that Brady’s ready to get back to work again. Posting an obviously edited video of him throwing passes to a JUGS machine, he wrote “Training camp starts this week. I’m looking forward to having some actual receivers again…”
The fact that he’s throwing footballs to the machine and not actual players didn’t stop fans from speculating about the caption’s true meaning.
Many took to social media to claim it was a subtle diss of the New England Patriots organization, from whom Brady had a less than pretty divorce. Either way, if you’re a Bucs fan, you’ll be happy to see your QB1 fired up for training camp
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Training Camp: Key Information
Start Date: July 24th
Location: AdventHealth Training Center
Fan policy: Restricted group of fans may attend
Position Battles: Who will back up Tom Brady?
The Bucs retained all 22 starters from their Super Bowl run for 2021, so the team doesn’t have a lot of holes to fill, at least up front. But there still are some battles we could see.
The Backup QB Battle will be interesting to follow. The Bucs drafted promising talent Kyle Trask out of Florida who has tremendous upside. And HC Bruce Arians is impressed with what he has seen so far.
“Mentally-wise, he’s not far behind what Andrew did in the same offense, and what Andrew did that (rookie) year (2012) is unbelievable,” Arians said of Trask. “I’m not saying he’s Andrew Luck, but mentally he’s still really sharp.”
But veteran Blaine Gabbert is most likely to get the starting gig should Brady be out. Gabbert was a top 10 pick in 2011, and has been a solid back-up QB throughout his career.
Gabbert has also spent a whole year more than Trask in Arians’ offense. Trask and fellow roster QB Ryan Griffin worked mostly with rookies on one field during the June minicamp while Gabbert and Brady worked with the front-liners on another.
